Restructuring Public Governance in Integrated Administrative Systems

Abstract

Government ministries and agencies serve as vital components of the core executive of states and play a fundamental role in the democratic governing of modern societies (Dunleavy & Rhodes, 1990; Orren & Skowronek, 2017; Vibert, 2007). In recent decades, however, architecture of government has sustained significant transformation, notably by embedding government institutions and governing processes of EU member states in multilevel federal structures (Wilson, 1887: 221). In effect, government civil servants carry out a ‘double-hatted’ role in the multilevel executive order of the EU (EMEO) (Egeberg, 2006; Trondal, 2010). Serving as key actors in implementing and enforcing EU rules, government officials personalize the EMEO by working in national ministries and agencies while also partaking in European administrative networks, dealing with EU agencies and the Commission and implementing EU rules on national ground. Facing choice-architectures that are multiple, overlapping, and sometimes incompatible, it is crucial to study the way civil servants cope with potentially conflicting demands (Ansell et al., 2017: 1; Easton, 1965; Gunnell, 2011; Miller, 1971; van Dorp and ’t Hart 2019). Departing from the observations of Chap. 5 , this chapter takes the analysis a step further by asking, if being part of an integrated multilevel administrative system can create systematic biases by mobilizing actors’ discretionary attention toward certain problems and solutions, structuring patterns of conflict and cooperation in certain ways, and enabling coordination and steering along certain dimensions rather than others? Complex choice-architectures may challenge conventional wisdom concerning the conditions for public governance in situations where events, demands, and support interact and change in highly variable, inconsistent, unexpected, or unpredictable ways (Ansell & Trondal, 2018; Rosenau, 1990). The chapter examines what choices government officials make when subject to contending influences and conflictual premises on how to maneuver, and tests how such choices are organizationally contingent. Parallel to Chap. 5 , this chapter shows that being embedded in multiple institutional structures mobilizes pragmatist compound behavior among government officials characterized by compromises and abilities to navigate conflicting concerns in this multilevel structure. The study theoretically argues that primary and secondary organizational structures shape actors’ behavior in complex ways, but that secondary structures are far less significant.